Warm Up #10

• Did Animal Farm end the way you expected? Explain why or why not.

SENIOR PROJECTDue today: #10

Due Next Class: #11

Animal Farm

George Orwell

Reading Questions Ch. 6-7

• Answer the following questions:• 1. What problems do the animals run into in building the windmill? How are these problems

solved?• 2. Why does it become necessary to trade with the humans?• 3. What happens when an animal begins to express doubt or concern with Napoleon’s

decisions? Why is this important?• 4. How does Squealer justify Napoleon’s decision to trade with humans?• 5. To where do the pigs move? How are these new arrangements justified?• 6. How does Napoleon react to the destruction of the windmill? Whom does he blame? Why

does he do this?• 7. How does Napoleon try to hide the poor conditions of Animal Farm?• 8. Why does Napoleon order that the hens’ eggs be sold? What happens when the hens rebel?• 9. What is Snowball rumored to be doing during the winter and spring months? How does

Squealer distort the details of the Battle of the Cowshed? How does this work in Napoleon’s favor?

• 10. Why do the animals confess to being traitors? How do the animals react to the executions?

• 11. Why does Napoleon order the animals to stop singing “Beasts of England?” How does he justify this change?

Reading Questions Ch. 8-10

• 1. How have the Commandments been changing throughout the novel? Who do you think is responsible? Why do you think the animals doubt their memories?

• 2. Why does Squealer read the figures to the animals? What is the purpose he is trying to serve?• 3. What other names are given to Napoleon? What is your reaction to these titles?• 4. How do the pigs continually strip Snowball of his honor? What is the purpose of this degradation?• 5. Describe the scandal surrounding the wood pile.• 6. How is the battle against Frederick’s men different from the Battle of the Cowshed?• 7. Why do you think Napoleon proclaims the drinking of alcohol punishable by death? What happened to him

the night before?• 8. How does another Commandment change at the end of this chapter?• 9. Why are the animals so easily fooled, even when they find Squealer with a ladder and paint?• 10. How has the animal’s quality of life changed?• 11. What is Boxer looking forward to at the end of summer next year?• 12. What celebrations are happening, despite the animal’s hardships?• 13. To where does Squealer say Boxer will be sent? To where is he actually sent?• 14. How does Squealer claim Boxer spent his last hours?• 15. How has the farm changed over the years?• 16. What final Commandment do the animals still hold on to with faith?• 17. What does Clover see in the yard? Why is this shocking to the animals? How is this new skill supported by

the sheep?• 18. What is the single Commandment? What does the word “equal” really mean in this context?• 19. For what does Pilkington praise the pigs?• 20. What causes the animals to run back to the window?• 21. What do the animals see when they look in the window? What is the significance of this sighting?

George Orwell Biography

• Born as Eric Blair in Bengal, India in 1903 and moved to England in 1904.

• Went to Eton and later served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.• Blair became a socialist, speaking openly against the excesses of

governments east and west and fighting briefly for the socialist cause during the Spanish Civil War(1936 to 1939)

• Orwell’s stint in a Trotskyist (Leon Trotsky followers) battalion influenced his plans for a critique of totalitarian communism.

• HATED totalitarianism and Communism• When writing, used the pen name of George Orwell, so if his writing

failed, no one would know. • Lived among the poor of London and Paris and wrote about their lives• Died of tuberculosis January 21, 1950

Critical Eye on Communism • Orwell believed that the Soviet Union was

not a positive representation of the possibilities of socialist society.

• Orwell could not turn a blind eye to the cruelties and hypocrisies of Soviet Communist Party, which had overturned the semi-feudal system of the tsars only to replace it with the dictatorial reign of Joseph Stalin.

• Orwell became a sharp critic of both capitalism and communism, and is remembered chiefly as an advocate of freedom and a committed opponent of communist oppression.

Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1917

Socialism: Political and Economic Philosophy

• Socialism seemed the only remedy for the invidious problem of poverty, a political and economic philosophy arguing that only when the state controls the means of production and distribution will all members of a nation share its profits and rewards. HAVE AND SHARE ALIKE.

• Unlike capitalism, where a nation’s production/distribution is privately owned and controlled, socialism argues that only government regulation of a nation's economy can close the gap between the rich and the poor. GOVERNMENT OWNS AND EVERYONE SHARES.

Old Major’s Dream

• In Das Kapital (Capital), Karl Marx

(German philosopher) advanced an

economically predetermined interpretation

of human history. • Marx argued that society would naturally evolve—from a

monarchy and aristocracy, to capitalism, and finally into communism, in a system which all property would be held in common.

• Capitalist oppressed poor workers would have their dignity restored, and all people would live as equals.

• Marx followed with The Communist Manifesto, an impassioned call to action that urged, “Workers of the world, unite!”

The Revolution (and betrayal)

• In February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, the tsar (monarch) of Russia, abdicated and the socialist Alexander Kerensky became premier. On November 7 , Kerensky was ousted.

• Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution, became chief commissar. As wars raged on virtually every Russian front, Lenin’s chief allies began jockeying for power in the newly formed state; the most influential included Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.

• Trotsky and Stalin emerged as the most likely heirs to Lenin’s vast power. Trotsky was a popular and charismatic leader, famous for his impassioned speeches, while the taciturn Stalin preferred to consolidate his power behind the scenes.

• After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin orchestrated an alliance against Trotsky. Stalin became the unquestioned dictator of the Soviet Union and had Trotsky expelled from the Communist Party and finally from Russia altogether in 1936. Trotsky fled to Mexico, where he was assassinated on Stalin’s orders in 1940.

Napolean

• Joseph Stalin (OR Josip Tito, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, and Slobodan Milosevic)

• Napoleon seems most similar to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

• Napoleon generally represents the political tyrants that have emerged throughout human history.

• Named after the early-eighteenth-century French general Napoleon, who betrayed the democratic principles on which he rode to power, becoming a despot just like the aristocrats.

• Both the fictional Napoleon and historical dictators use lying and bullying tactics.

Snowball

• As a parallel for Leon Trotsky, Snowball appears as an idealist who throws himself heart and soul into the spread Animalism worldwide and to improve Animal Farm’s infrastructure.

• Relying only on the force of his own logic and rhetorical skill to gain his influence, he proves no match for Napoleon’s show of brute force.

Enemy of the People

In 1934, Stalin’s ally Serge Kirov was assassinated in Leningrad, prompting Stalin to commence his infamous purges of the Communist Party.

Holding “show trials”—trials whose outcomes he and his allies had already decided Stalin had his opponents officially labeled as “enemies of the people,” involved Trotskyist or anti-Stalinist conspiracies with a sentence that guaranteed immediate execution. Just by a mere mention Trotsky’s name with yours would ensure your immediate elimination from the Communist Party.

As the Soviet government’s economic planning faltered and failed, Russia suffered under a surge of violence, fear, and starvation. Stalin used Trotsky as a common national enemy and thus a source of negative unity. Trotsky was a frightening specter used to conjure horrifying eventualities, in comparison with which the current misery paled.

Leaders in and out

• In the Russia of 1917, it appeared that Karl Marx’s dreams were to become reality. The tsar abdicated the throne that was in the family for 300 years and a intellectual revolutionary had seized power in the name of the Communist Party.

• The new regime took land and industry from private control and centralized them under government supervision. Restoring Russia to pre-WWI prosperity and modernizing infrastructure and adding electricity to rural areas.

• After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky had a power struggle for position in the newly formed Soviet Union.

• Stalin, a crafty and manipulative politician, soon banished Trotsky, an idealistic proponent of international communism.

• Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately twenty million Soviet citizens.

Themes beyond the text

• Animal Farm was written as an attack on a specific government, but its general themes of oppression, suffering, and injustice have far broader application. In modern times, we have come to see Orwell’s book as a powerful attack on any political, rhetorical, or military power that seeks to control human beings unjustly.

• Where in the world is this happening now?

Sound familiar?

• Russian society in the early twentieth century was bipolar: a tiny minority controlled most of the country’s wealth, while the vast majority of the country’s inhabitants were impoverished and oppressed peasants.

• Communism arose in Russia when the nation’s workers and peasants, assisted by a class of concerned intellectuals known as the intelligentsia, rebelled against and overwhelmed the wealthy and powerful class of capitalists and aristocrats. They hoped to establish a socialist utopia based on the principles of the German economic and political philosopher Karl Marx.

SEVEN COMMANDMENTS- Write down the original and then write what had happened to it by the end of the book

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

“FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD”

Allegory

• Specifically, Animal Farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution of 1917.

• Orwell creates fictional characters, cleverly disguised as animals, who represent specific people and ideas surrounding the events of the Russian Revolution.• Although Orwell was immensely influenced by the events

occurring during this time, it is still important to remember the broader implications, themes, and symbols of this novella.

Connecting to History

Rea

l Per

son/

Gro

up Karl Marx (1818-1883) wrote the Communist Manifesto and set ideas of revolution and the Communist ideal in motion.

Fic

tiona

l Cha

ract

er/ C

once

pt Old Major

Sim

ilari

ties

Old Major introduced the idea that “humans are bad” and set the Animal Farm revolution in motion.

Connecting to History

Joseph Stalin Napoleon

Leon Trotsky Snowball

Propaganda department Squealer

Czar Nicholas II Mr. Jones

Communism Animalism

Dedicated supporters of Stalin; generally undereducated and highly naïve.

Boxer

Former Aristocracy; moved away from Russia to continue to live their lavish lifestyle.

Mollie

The Communist Anthem, “The Internationale,” replaced by Stalin with the “Hymn of the Soviet Union.”

“Beasts of England”

Stalin’s development of the NKVD, which became the KGB, Russia’s secret police.

The Dogs

Critics of political and social change. Benjamin

• To the animals, they created a utopia in which they ruled themselves and everything they did benefitted the whole of Animal Farm. In groups of 5 create a fictional utopia of your own. Include the following:• the governmental system: you may use existing

systems, or create your own.• the commandments (laws): include here personal

freedoms protected and things outlawed.• the class system: explain how many there are and

how they are determined.• the main export: choose the one thing your country is

known for creating and providing, this will be your main source of income.

• a map: can be based off a real land mass or made up.

HOMEWORK1. Senior Project #11

2. Study for Animal Farm test

3. Finish any activities not finished in class